Prefer to take the high road rather than respond to murder with another murder . . . I guess we could cut off the hands of thieves, poke out eyes for eyes, and bring back public hangings too, but really I sort of like the more civilized approach we've evolved toward.

yes we have evolved to a nation that is fat [68% overwgt]; dumb[look at the educational scores against of nations]; and stupid [we want our enemies to like us]. As an aside, we would not have won WWII with the present rules of engagement. Questions from the uniformed?

Yes, well the smarter countries don't have the death penalty. Nor do they allow guns everywhere. And they have government-funded health care.

a non sequitur response. Come on man stop it. Is that the best you have got?

Ha! I'm still trying to figure out what you meant by "Questions from the uniformed?"

Prefer to take the high road rather than respond to murder with another murder . . . I guess we could cut off the hands of thieves, poke out eyes for eyes, and bring back public hangings too, but really I sort of like the more civilized approach we've evolved toward.

yes we have evolved to a nation that is fat [68% overwgt]; dumb[look at the educational scores against of nations]; and stupid [we want our enemies to like us]. As an aside, we would not have won WWII with the present rules of engagement. Questions from the uniformed?

Yes, well the smarter countries don't have the death penalty. Nor do they allow guns everywhere. And they have government-funded health care.

And your proof that this makes them "smarter" is?

Countries with higher average educational scores than the US tend to have these things. These things don't make the people in those countries smarter, but they may exist in those countries because the average citizen in those countries is better educated than the average citizen in the US and therefore is more likely to make rational decisions and less prone to make decisions based on fear, anger, and emotion.

Those conditions are found in socialistic countries where it is cradle to the grave also.

Prefer to take the high road rather than respond to murder with another murder . . . I guess we could cut off the hands of thieves, poke out eyes for eyes, and bring back public hangings too, but really I sort of like the more civilized approach we've evolved toward.

yes we have evolved to a nation that is fat [68% overwgt]; dumb[look at the educational scores against of nations]; and stupid [we want our enemies to like us]. As an aside, we would not have won WWII with the present rules of engagement. Questions from the uniformed?

Yes, well the smarter countries don't have the death penalty. Nor do they allow guns everywhere. And they have government-funded health care.

And your proof that this makes them "smarter" is?

Countries with higher average educational scores than the US tend to have these things. These things don't make the people in those countries smarter, but they may exist in those countries because the average citizen in those countries is better educated than the average citizen in the US and therefore is more likely to make rational decisions and less prone to make decisions based on fear, anger, and emotion.

It seems you are absolutely incapable of refraining from comparing apples and oranges.

"Because in every country, students at the bottom of the social class distribution perform worse than students higher in that distribution, U.S. average performance appears to be relatively low partly because we have so many more test takers from the bottom of the social class distribution." (epi.org)

That sink in for you? Your one size fits all solutions to everything are naive.

Countries with higher average educational scores than the US tend to have these things. These things don't make the people in those countries smarter, but they may exist in those countries because the average citizen in those countries is better educated than the average citizen in the US and therefore is more likely to make rational decisions and less prone to make decisions based on fear, anger, and emotion.

What makes this especially funny is that the very people that drag down the scores the most in the US are people who support the Democrats who are the political champions of most of the policies you claim are the solutions of the smart. LMAO

Prefer to take the high road rather than respond to murder with another murder . . . I guess we could cut off the hands of thieves, poke out eyes for eyes, and bring back public hangings too, but really I sort of like the more civilized approach we've evolved toward.

yes we have evolved to a nation that is fat [68% overwgt]; dumb[look at the educational scores against of nations]; and stupid [we want our enemies to like us]. As an aside, we would not have won WWII with the present rules of engagement. Questions from the uniformed?

Yes, well the smarter countries don't have the death penalty. Nor do they allow guns everywhere. And they have government-funded health care.

a non sequitur response. Come on man stop it. Is that the best you have got?

Ha! I'm still trying to figure out what you meant by "Questions from the uniformed?"

It seems you are absolutely incapable of refraining from comparing apples and oranges.

"Because in every country, students at the bottom of the social class distribution perform worse than students higher in that distribution, U.S. average performance appears to be relatively low partly because we have so many more test takers from the bottom of the social class distribution." (epi.org)

That sink in for you? Your one size fits all solutions to everything are naive.

[/QUOTE]

From the same Economic Policy Institute study:

At all points in the social class distribution, U.S. students perform worse, and in many cases substantially worse, than students in a group of top-scoring countries (Canada, Finland, and Korea). Although controlling for social class distribution would narrow the difference in average scores between these countries and the United States, it would not eliminate it.

It seems you are absolutely incapable of refraining from comparing apples and oranges.

"Because in every country, students at the bottom of the social class distribution perform worse than students higher in that distribution, U.S. average performance appears to be relatively low partly because we have so many more test takers from the bottom of the social class distribution." (epi.org)

That sink in for you? Your one size fits all solutions to everything are naive.

From the same Economic Policy Institute study:

At all points in the social class distribution, U.S. students perform worse, and in many cases substantially worse, than students in a group of top-scoring countries (Canada, Finland, and Korea). Although controlling for social class distribution would narrow the difference in average scores between these countries and the United States, it would not eliminate it.

And from the same study...

"If U.S. adolescents had a social class distribution that was similar to the distribution in countries to which the United States is frequently compared, average reading scores in the United States would be higher than average reading scores in the similar post-industrial countries we examined (France, Germany, and the United Kingdom), and average math scores in the United States would be about the same as average math scores in similar post-industrial countries."

Aren't you the one who was touting the "smart" people in countries with free healthcare, less guns and no death penalty? Aren't France, Germany and the UK such countries with these brilliant policies because they are so smart?

In other words, as usual (on politics) you are completely FOS. But there is hope. Once you figure out one size doesn't fit all you will have made a good start.

It seems you are absolutely incapable of refraining from comparing apples and oranges.

"Because in every country, students at the bottom of the social class distribution perform worse than students higher in that distribution, U.S. average performance appears to be relatively low partly because we have so many more test takers from the bottom of the social class distribution." (epi.org)

That sink in for you? Your one size fits all solutions to everything are naive.

From the same Economic Policy Institute study:

At all points in the social class distribution, U.S. students perform worse, and in many cases substantially worse, than students in a group of top-scoring countries (Canada, Finland, and Korea). Although controlling for social class distribution would narrow the difference in average scores between these countries and the United States, it would not eliminate it.

Althought I agree with you, the population level of any Scandanavian country or a S. Korea and the fact they have less baggage than we do as a country, the contexts can't be compared.

Not to mention a place like Canada has gobs of extra money for education because the good old USA is their defense department. The NYPD is larger than the Canadian army!

It seems you are absolutely incapable of refraining from comparing apples and oranges.

"Because in every country, students at the bottom of the social class distribution perform worse than students higher in that distribution, U.S. average performance appears to be relatively low partly because we have so many more test takers from the bottom of the social class distribution." (epi.org)

That sink in for you? Your one size fits all solutions to everything are naive.

From the same Economic Policy Institute study:

At all points in the social class distribution, U.S. students perform worse, and in many cases substantially worse, than students in a group of top-scoring countries (Canada, Finland, and Korea). Although controlling for social class distribution would narrow the difference in average scores between these countries and the United States, it would not eliminate it.

Althought I agree with you, the population level of any Scandanavian country or a S. Korea and the fact they have less baggage than we do as a country, the contexts can't be compared.

Not to mention a place like Canada has gobs of extra money for education because the good old USA is their defense department. The NYPD is larger than the Canadian army!

Oh goodness, a politically-related thread on a football board. This should be interesting. For the record, the death penalty in Massachusetts was abolished in Furman v. Georgia in 1972, and since then no viable death penalty legislation has been successfully implemented and maintained. As for the death penalty itself, I suggest you do some research into its flaws. Even in the post-Gregg vs Georgia days, which ruled that capital punishment was legal provided it addressed several deficiencies noted in Furman, tons of issues still arise. These include capriciousness/arbitrariness of its implementation; social, economic, and racial drivers in its implementation; inability to/inconclusiveness in producing intended results (general and specific deterrence, retribution, encouragement of guilty pleas, economic savings) (incapacitation, I admit, is certainly attained); and the costs of wrongful conviction. I'm all for punishing people for crimes, but if you do any real extensive research on the death penalty, I'm sure you'd be inclined to drift at least more moderately toward the middle of the spectrum on death penalty advocacy vs. opposition, if not more toward opposition.

And for the record, I've taken death penalty classes in college, read quite a few books and scholarly journals on it, have written several lengthy papers and presented findings on various subjects in the field, and am currently writing my thesis on it, so if y'all have any questions about it, I'm your guy haha.

Oh goodness, a politically-related thread on a football board. This should be interesting. For the record, the death penalty in Massachusetts was abolished in Furman v. Georgia in 1972, and since then no viable death penalty legislation has been successfully implemented and maintained. As for the death penalty itself, I suggest you do some research into its flaws. Even in the post-Gregg vs Georgia days, which ruled that capital punishment was legal provided it addressed several deficiencies noted in Furman, tons of issues still arise. These include capriciousness/arbitrariness of its implementation; social, economic, and racial drivers in its implementation; inability to/inconclusiveness in producing intended results (general and specific deterrence, retribution, encouragement of guilty pleas, economic savings) (incapacitation, I admit, is certainly attained); and the costs of wrongful conviction. I'm all for punishing people for crimes, but if you do any real extensive research on the death penalty, I'm sure you'd be inclined to drift at least more moderately toward the middle of the spectrum on death penalty advocacy vs. opposition, if not more toward opposition.

And for the record, I've taken death penalty classes in college, read quite a few books and scholarly journals on it, have written several lengthy papers and presented findings on various subjects in the field, and am currently writing my thesis on it, so if y'all have any questions about it, I'm your guy haha.

Question: If AH is found guilty of an execution style murder, do you not support the death penalty and why? Execution style murders have no extenuating circumstances IMO.

Well, first off being found guilty of execution style murder and committing an execution style murder are two very different things FYI. So for being found guilty of execution style murder, I would adamantly argue against the death penalty. Actually committing the crime is another beast, but I'd still be opposed to the death penalty for several reasons.

First, as much as you try to isolate the incident, what we're ultimately talking about is PUBLIC policy, meaning that the death penalty ramifications would not just reach Hernandez. While it'd be great to examine the death penalty's merit in a vacuum, in practice that's simply impractical. That's a huge reason for my objection to the death penalty- while you may find it justified for particularly heinous crimes, actual uniform, fair, and unarbitrary implementation and execution remain improbably and likely impossible.

Also, while it may appeal emotionally to us to just kill murderers, since when has the US justice system been based on reciprocity? Do we rape rapists? Steal from thieves? How do you punish people for DUI then? If a murderer kills an entire person's family in front of one family member and spares that person in order to cause them mental anguish, is it the state's role to murder the murderer's family then? Obviously, when you play out exact reciprocity scenarios, you can begin to see how absurd and impractical a system it is. Why then would we allow that to be the standard for one crime? It just doesn't make sense.

I'm all for giving the worst available punishment for the worst crimes. But is the worst punishment the death penalty? Isn't a life without opportunity for parole in and of itself a death penalty, only on a longer timeline? I know for me, if I were facing life in prison or had the option to end it early, I'd opt for the latter. Once again, that's an individual assessment and one that can't be answered uniformly. And then, that brings up further questions: What constitutes the worst of the worst? Where should prosecutors and the state draw the line? What about mitigating/aggravating factors? Theoretically, had Odin repeatedly verbally, emotionally, and sexually abused Hernandez's girlfriend's sister and threatened Hernandez's girlfriend, and Hernandez killed him in cold blood because of that, would you still want Hernandez to be killed? (Ignoring of course the other alleged crimes he's being investigated for) Murder is such a unique and personal a crime that it creates real problems when trying to draft policy implementations for it.

Am I opposed to the death penalty in and of itself? No. If its purpose was to serve a legitimate desirable legal or societal end (deterrence, incapacitation, retribution, etc), its use actually served that end and the data supported that fact, its implementation was fair, impartial, and not capricious, and it offered fair recourse for appeals and appropriate and proportionate reimbursement for wrongfully convicted individuals, then I could support the death penalty as a policy. Because ours doesn't do that, and likely never will abide by that standard, I can't support an overarching death penalty policy, and thus, cannot support the death penalty for individual cases like Hernandez's, even if the crime is horrendous and the evidence is overwhelmingly conclusive.

It seems you are absolutely incapable of refraining from comparing apples and oranges.

"Because in every country, students at the bottom of the social class distribution perform worse than students higher in that distribution, U.S. average performance appears to be relatively low partly because we have so many more test takers from the bottom of the social class distribution." (epi.org)

That sink in for you? Your one size fits all solutions to everything are naive.

From the same Economic Policy Institute study:

At all points in the social class distribution, U.S. students perform worse, and in many cases substantially worse, than students in a group of top-scoring countries (Canada, Finland, and Korea). Although controlling for social class distribution would narrow the difference in average scores between these countries and the United States, it would not eliminate it.

Althought I agree with you, the population level of any Scandanavian country or a S. Korea and the fact they have less baggage than we do as a country, the contexts can't be compared.

Not to mention a place like Canada has gobs of extra money for education because the good old USA is their defense department. The NYPD is larger than the Canadian army!

Apples and oranges.

As my mother used to say, you make your bed, you sleep in it.

As my mother used to say, when others are footing the bill for some of your necessities don't complain that they don't spend as much on certain luxuries as you do.

FIGURE A4Average national math scores, actual and re-weighted using similar post-industrial country average social class group distribution, for U.S. and six comparison countries, PISA 2009

Source: Authors’ analysis of OECD Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2009 database for each country

Average national reading scores, actual and re-weighted using similar post-industrial country average social class group distribution, for U.S. and six comparison countries, PISA 2009

Source: Authors’ analysis of OECD Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2009 database for each country

Did you or did you not claim that several countries have national healthcare, no death penalty and gun control because they are "smart" and the US does not have these to the same degree because thay are not "smart"?

Yet the graph you offer shows that countries with these "smart" policies that you champion are equal or worse than the US level of "smart".

You're not making a lot of sense.

If you want to tell us Americans that we are stupid because we don't fully embrace your liberal agenda, don't be shocked if somebody swings back pro.

the person executed will be permenantly deterred from crime. I like that.

Let me rephrase...lol. If a felon commits murder - and already knows that he's going to death row - it makes him/her even more dangerous because there is nothing that would hold him back from committing additional murders. In other words, he would have nothing else to lose.

The only way it would be a detterrent is if death row happened w/i a month (for example) after conviction. But it doesn't. People are on death row..."forever" (it seems like).

Babe, you haven't been paying full attention to the thread. It was TSWFAN who brought up the fact that, compared to people in other countries, Americans have become "dumb" (his word not mine). He seemed to be making the argument that if Americans weren't so "dumb" they'd want to keep or expand the death penalty. I simply pointed out that most of the countries that were "smarter" (again based on the tests TSWFAN referred to) had already abolished the death penalty and in fact were more progressive in many of their policies than the US. In other words, despite what TSWFAN seems to be arguing, higher test scores seem to correlate with more progressive policies, lower test scores with more backward policies. There are exceptions to the rule, of course, but generally the correlation seems to exist (though I haven't tested it statistically).

You've wanted to quibble about the test scores. Fine. But no matter how you cut it, the US is at best mediocre compared with its counterparts in advanced democracies.

I think it's interesting that you pull an EPI study for your arguments. EPI is a liberal think tank that promotes the very same progressive policies you dislike. On education, they strongly believe that the poor test scores of American students stem from economic inequality, and that the way to improve scores is to reduce economic inequality by creating more social programs. Most important, they believe, is increasing the access of poor children to better healthcare. The authors of the study you quote use the data from that study to advocate for the very policies you dismiss. They believe that the higher number of economically disadvantaged test takers drives US scores down, but their solution isn't to throw up their hands and say "it is what it is." Instead they want the federal and state governments to do more to alleviate the economic disadvantages that they believe are the root causes of the problem. Maybe if you spend more time reading what they say rather than pulling their data randomly to rationalize your own opinions you'll come around to agreeing with them. Then you'll understand why introducing progressive policies here may actually lead to a smarter, healthier America that compares more favourably with other advanced democracies in many measures of quality of life.

Well, first off being found guilty of execution style murder and committing an execution style murder are two very different things FYI. So for being found guilty of execution style murder, I would adamantly argue against the death penalty. Actually committing the crime is another beast, but I'd still be opposed to the death penalty for several reasons.

First, as much as you try to isolate the incident, what we're ultimately talking about is PUBLIC policy, meaning that the death penalty ramifications would not just reach Hernandez. While it'd be great to examine the death penalty's merit in a vacuum, in practice that's simply impractical. That's a huge reason for my objection to the death penalty- while you may find it justified for particularly heinous crimes, actual uniform, fair, and unarbitrary implementation and execution remain improbably and likely impossible.

Also, while it may appeal emotionally to us to just kill murderers, since when has the US justice system been based on reciprocity? Do we rape rapists? Steal from thieves? How do you punish people for DUI then? If a murderer kills an entire person's family in front of one family member and spares that person in order to cause them mental anguish, is it the state's role to murder the murderer's family then? Obviously, when you play out exact reciprocity scenarios, you can begin to see how absurd and impractical a system it is. Why then would we allow that to be the standard for one crime? It just doesn't make sense.

I'm all for giving the worst available punishment for the worst crimes. But is the worst punishment the death penalty? Isn't a life without opportunity for parole in and of itself a death penalty, only on a longer timeline? I know for me, if I were facing life in prison or had the option to end it early, I'd opt for the latter. Once again, that's an individual assessment and one that can't be answered uniformly. And then, that brings up further questions: What constitutes the worst of the worst? Where should prosecutors and the state draw the line? What about mitigating/aggravating factors? Theoretically, had Odin repeatedly verbally, emotionally, and sexually abused Hernandez's girlfriend's sister and threatened Hernandez's girlfriend, and Hernandez killed him in cold blood because of that, would you still want Hernandez to be killed? (Ignoring of course the other alleged crimes he's being investigated for) Murder is such a unique and personal a crime that it creates real problems when trying to draft policy implementations for it.

Am I opposed to the death penalty in and of itself? No. If its purpose was to serve a legitimate desirable legal or societal end (deterrence, incapacitation, retribution, etc), its use actually served that end and the data supported that fact, its implementation was fair, impartial, and not capricious, and it offered fair recourse for appeals and appropriate and proportionate reimbursement for wrongfully convicted individuals, then I could support the death penalty as a policy. Because ours doesn't do that, and likely never will abide by that standard, I can't support an overarching death penalty policy, and thus, cannot support the death penalty for individual cases like Hernandez's, even if the crime is horrendous and the evidence is overwhelmingly conclusive.

Good contribution to the debate JMUFranco, and similar to my own position on the death penalty. It's clear you've studied the issue deeply.

A simple summary for those who don't read your whole post is that, practicallyspeaking, the death penalty has far too many problems to offset its few potential benefits. You steer clear of a moral argument for or against, which is sensible given those arguments are highly subjective. I'll add though that world opinion in advanced countries has generally moved away from support for the death penalty, while support remains strong in countries that we generally think of as backwards (e.g., some Middle Eastern countries). Again, pragmatically speaking, there's an argument to be made that we're better off aligning our policies with those of the countries we are most like and want to preserve the best relations with rather than with nations we want to differentiate ourselves from.

the person executed will be permenantly deterred from crime. I like that.

Let me rephrase...lol. If a felon commits murder - and already knows that he's going to death row - it makes him/her even more dangerous because there is nothing that would hold him back from committing additional murders. In other words, he would have nothing else to lose.

The only way it would be a detterrent is if death row happened w/i a month (for example) after conviction. But it doesn't. People are on death row..."forever" (it seems like).

Additionally, deterrence fails on a few other levels. First off, I think the number was one-fourth of 1% of all murderers are actually executed. So even IF the murderer was rationally considering the chances of being caught and the chances of being executed, the chance of execution is so low that deterrence is hardly attained. Additionally, that's operating off the assumption that all murderers are rationally, logically processing their surroundings, which by no means is true.

Additionally, say theoretically that murderers did operate rationally and that deterrence did work. Then, following the nation-wide moratorium on the death penalty following the Furman v. Georgia decision, the murder rate should have increased rapidly. Additionally, after Gregg v. Georgia, when the death penalty was re-enacted, one would expect the murder rate to drop. However, in most states the opposite effects were observed. Additionally, shouldn't the murder rate per capita be higher in states without the death penalty than in those with it, assuming you control for economic situations, class, race, etc.? However, the results are mixed, at best, although most of the states without death penalty legislation actually show lower serious crime rates than those with death penalty legislation.

Also a side note to TWFAN, deterrence refers to the person, when faced with the decision to commit murder again or not choosing not to. What you're referring to is incapacitation, which the death penalty certainly achieves... as does life without opportunity for parole at an exponentially lower cost to the state.

Well, first off being found guilty of execution style murder and committing an execution style murder are two very different things FYI. So for being found guilty of execution style murder, I would adamantly argue against the death penalty. Actually committing the crime is another beast, but I'd still be opposed to the death penalty for several reasons.

First, as much as you try to isolate the incident, what we're ultimately talking about is PUBLIC policy, meaning that the death penalty ramifications would not just reach Hernandez. While it'd be great to examine the death penalty's merit in a vacuum, in practice that's simply impractical. That's a huge reason for my objection to the death penalty- while you may find it justified for particularly heinous crimes, actual uniform, fair, and unarbitrary implementation and execution remain improbably and likely impossible.

Also, while it may appeal emotionally to us to just kill murderers, since when has the US justice system been based on reciprocity? Do we rape rapists? Steal from thieves? How do you punish people for DUI then? If a murderer kills an entire person's family in front of one family member and spares that person in order to cause them mental anguish, is it the state's role to murder the murderer's family then? Obviously, when you play out exact reciprocity scenarios, you can begin to see how absurd and impractical a system it is. Why then would we allow that to be the standard for one crime? It just doesn't make sense.

I'm all for giving the worst available punishment for the worst crimes. But is the worst punishment the death penalty? Isn't a life without opportunity for parole in and of itself a death penalty, only on a longer timeline? I know for me, if I were facing life in prison or had the option to end it early, I'd opt for the latter. Once again, that's an individual assessment and one that can't be answered uniformly. And then, that brings up further questions: What constitutes the worst of the worst? Where should prosecutors and the state draw the line? What about mitigating/aggravating factors? Theoretically, had Odin repeatedly verbally, emotionally, and sexually abused Hernandez's girlfriend's sister and threatened Hernandez's girlfriend, and Hernandez killed him in cold blood because of that, would you still want Hernandez to be killed? (Ignoring of course the other alleged crimes he's being investigated for) Murder is such a unique and personal a crime that it creates real problems when trying to draft policy implementations for it.

Am I opposed to the death penalty in and of itself? No. If its purpose was to serve a legitimate desirable legal or societal end (deterrence, incapacitation, retribution, etc), its use actually served that end and the data supported that fact, its implementation was fair, impartial, and not capricious, and it offered fair recourse for appeals and appropriate and proportionate reimbursement for wrongfully convicted individuals, then I could support the death penalty as a policy. Because ours doesn't do that, and likely never will abide by that standard, I can't support an overarching death penalty policy, and thus, cannot support the death penalty for individual cases like Hernandez's, even if the crime is horrendous and the evidence is overwhelmingly conclusive.

Good contribution to the debate JMUFranco, and similar to my own position on the death penalty. It's clear you've studied the issue deeply.

A simple summary for those who don't read your whole post is that, practicallyspeaking, the death penalty has far too many problems to offset its few potential benefits. You steer clear of a moral argument for or against, which is sensible given those arguments are highly subjective. I'll add though that world opinion in advanced countries has generally moved away from support for the death penalty, while support remains strong in countries that we generally think of as backwards (e.g., some Middle Eastern countries). Again, pragmatically speaking, there's an argument to be made that we're better off aligning our policies with those of the countries we are most like and want to preserve the best relations with rather than with nations we want to differentiate ourselves from.

Nice summary, and well done touching upon the international political implications that I didn't mention. Thanks bud

Babe, you haven't been paying full attention to the thread. It was TSWFAN who brought up the fact that, compared to people in other countries, Americans have become "dumb" (his word not mine). He seemed to be making the argument that if Americans weren't so "dumb" they'd want to keep or expand the death penalty. I simply pointed out that most of the countries that were "smarter" (again based on the tests TSWFAN referred to) had already abolished the death penalty and in fact were more progressive in many of their policies than the US. In other words, despite what TSWFAN seems to be arguing, higher test scores seem to correlate with more progressive policies, lower test scores with more backward policies. There are exceptions to the rule, of course, but generally the correlation seems to exist (though I haven't tested it statistically).

You've wanted to quibble about the test scores. Fine. But no matter how you cut it, the US is at best mediocre compared with its counterparts in advanced democracies.

I think it's interesting that you pull an EPI study for your arguments. EPI is a liberal think tank that promotes the very same progressive policies you dislike. On education, they strongly believe that the poor test scores of American students stem from economic inequality, and that the way to improve scores is to reduce economic inequality by creating more social programs. Most important, they believe, is increasing the access of poor children to better healthcare. The authors of the study you quote use the data from that study to advocate for the very policies you dismiss. They believe that the higher number of economically disadvantaged test takers drives US scores down, but their solution isn't to throw up their hands and say "it is what it is." Instead they want the federal and state governments to do more to alleviate the economic disadvantages that they believe are the root causes of the problem. Maybe if you spend more time reading what they say rather than pulling their data randomly to rationalize your own opinions you'll come around to agreeing with them. Then you'll understand why introducing progressive policies here may actually lead to a smarter, healthier America that compares more favourably with other advanced democracies in many measures of quality of life.

Quote my entire statement or not at all PRO. Also I believe we spend more per capita on education and get mediocre results. Your solution is to spend more money.

your spelling of favorably indicates you are British. How are you taking the beheading ? Maybe if the soldier had a gun he would be alive now !!

Spending more won't solve anything in America until Americans re-establish a sense of community and civic pride that allows them to spend their money more constructively. That's the real problem in America: a complete loss of faith in the ability of Americans to work together for the common good. It's every man for himself there and it's leading to the skeptical, divisive, and surly society you've got.

I am an American, but I live in Canada now and honestly much prefer the culture here to what it has become in my home country. It's sad, but really who wants to live in an armed camp where everyone thinks the next guy is a potential threat and therefore is always prepared to shoot first?